Twenty Third & Seventh

Chelsea Collection Swells- Signed 'Little' Joe Dallesandro. Signed Jackie Curtis.

We'll need to call the rest-home if today gets any better.

In this morning's mail, my signed copy of LITTLE JOE SUPERSTAR.  Bliss!  I have Joe's signature and it is, on quick inspection, a beautiful and surprisingly dense book.  We consumed one chapter in a feeding frenzy over coffee and put the book down most impressed.  What could easily have been little more than a collection of snaps of Joe, not inherently a bad thing by any means, turns out to be another source of well researched and documented background material for obsessing on the golden [silver?] years of Warhol.  The only complaint is that it isn't indexed, I'll have to wait for Hotel Chelsea references as they occur.

If you want to secure a Joe Book follow this link through to the official website and start imagining what you might like Joe to write.  The ordering info is in the left sidebar under 'Things for Chelsea Girls' for easy reference.

Excitement number two was finding posters for JACKIE CURTIS: SUPERSTAR IN A HOUSEDRESS available via eBay.  The posters are signed by Jackie's dear friend, Holly Woodlawn & the book's author, Craig Highberger. Only six remain now that I've hit the 'send me to debtors prison' button. That takes me to having autographs from Little Joe who never gave it away, Jackie who thought she was James Dean for a day and Holly who came from Miami FLA.  I also have Lou Reed who made these allegations... 

I haven't seen / read Superstar in a Housedress yet, I'm up to my neck in Chelseaobilia right now. Reader reports are always welcome. The Jackie Curtis website is the best place to start your explorations.

For now, I happily endorse the Joe book as a good buy.  Be prepared for delivery to take a little while if Joe is to sign the book but have no fear, the seller stayed in touch and the book did show up.

Jackie Curtis at eBay is probably accessible from this link, if it fails a search on 'Jackie Curtis' will yield the posters and a CD recording that looks too intriguing for words.  Very honestly, I simply checked for 'one of those also' without too much thought.  It's a Jackie Curtis CD from a 1968 musical- of course I want it.

Also interesting is this new Jackie Curtis project.  A new independent film, written by the legendary Warhol Superstar Jackie Curtis, entitled, "Glamour, Glory & Gold, The Life & Legend of Nola Noonan, Goddess & Star!" is now in pre-production. Curtis' cousin, Joe Preston is directing, and producing the film under the name of his production company, Slugger Ann Productions

Ms Curtis is now listed under 'Things for Chelsea Girls'.  The link should go to the eBay items.  If all this has achieved no more than to confuse you, try this link FOR CENTRALISED JACKIE CURTIS NEWS AND INFO 

In the bottom of Ken Russel's Garden

Ken Russel may well be a cultivated taste, we suggest urgent viewing of Crimes of Passion and Salomes Last Dance for anyone interested to catch up a tiny bit.  Meanwhile, Mr Russel is deploying technology to by-pass controlling studios.  I wait in earnest...

The controversial film director Ken Russell has turned his back on the conventional movie business, launching a cottage film industry in his back garden with plans to distribute his latest works through his website and auction site eBay.

Hotel Chelsea Screen Captures

Just the beginning readers. Merely an acorn destined for oakdom. 

Somehow BitTorrent was accidentally loaded onto my computer and, before I knew it, there's the debut episode of Love Monkey.  What's a man to do if not grab some screen captures?

The copyright police may yet descend but so far we have the image I published of Richard Bernstein a few days back and a selection of shots from the very brief Love Monkey sequence.  The intent is that I should add other things from my DVD collection as I meander my way along Memory Lane and dig out the wide range of Hotel Chelsea material that I have hoarded.  One can't yet exclude the possibility of a technology dummy-spit, I constantly change regions and formats.  Wind'ohs will only tolerate the de-zoning software for so long before it crumbles away like the freeze dried turd that is.

As ever, you will find the gallery entrance on the right side-bar, wine and cheese will be served at 18:00.

New Photo Gallery- local graffiti art.

We have opened our third 'virtual gallery', a collection of pictures gathered under the prosaic title Graffiti in May Lane.  There is definitely something peculiarly Australian about the work.  I can't quite define what the distinction is but it seems that bright colours are deployed more readily by Australians.

You will find the gallery entrance on the right side-bar, wine and cheese will be served at 18:00.  Hotel Chelsea photos remain on display and on-going threats to publish more are made often.

Next up is screen captures from the new TV show Love Monkey which has a brief 'shot at the Chelsea' sequence.  Expect those pictures within the next few hours.

SAGging under the weight of nostalgia.

My time in New York really fucked some sections of my brain up.  I'm sure that people like me aren't meant to see and do the kinds of things that I ultimately saw and did.

I just caught a little of the RedCarpet segment of the SAG Awards.  In comparison to the Tonys it is so very painfully tacky.  The stars are bigger names, and I can't imagine that I would ever be allowed to walk that Red Carpet.  Further to the point, I wouldn't bother dressing to walk their carpet unless I happened to be in the neighborhood.  The flight to LA is way too exhausting for that kind of a pay-off.  The 'stars', names or not, could never equal the thrill of walking the same carpet as Barbara Cook and Chita Rivera.

It isn't without reason that I haven't been further into LA than the airport.  The place not only terrifies me,  I simply can't imagine what I would do there.  Once I'd checked into Chateau Marmont, all the time resenting how much further the money would go at Hotel Chelsea, I would be lost.  I would like to find Roy Rogers park to do the cliche leaving the men's toilet block shot and the High School that is Rydell High in Grease and any number of schools in any number of movies, televisuals and videos.

I think that all that 'Walk of Fame' stuff would induce vomiting.  I could well reach fatal levels of boredom on the Paramount tour which would be a case of riding a ride I have seen in movies, that simulates movies. I think I'd know when to expect Jaws to surface...  I'd love to see the Paramount gates in real life but, in my heart, I know they can't possibly live up to the image of Norma Desmond arriving for her meeting with Mr De Mille.  PoMo hype is all I would expect to find.  A very pale imitation of what those gates meant when Sunset Boulevard was shot is all that can remain now that post-modernity has had it's brutish way with us.

Being a person who chooses not to drive sort of eliminates LA anyway, a revelation in itself. 

Arriving for an awards ceremony in full daylight looks tacky.  It's the sort of thing that happens in a Sydney Summer.  All the trashy people look even trashier wearing full evening wear at mid-afternoon.  Despite the amount of lavish frocks and over-paid stylists set loose on this mob they look like an alien race has descended. 

It isn't real.  We need more realness. 

Please?

Flag Burning

Police have removed from a Melbourne gallery an artwork that incorporates a burnt Australian flag

There was a time in this country when we didn't expend masses of practical and emotional energy on squabbling over whether burning the flag is reprehensible beyond forgiveness or simply an exercise in good taste.

But we aren't that country any longer.  Now we have police pre-emptively seizing artworks on grounds that they might be naughty.

Persecution of artists is always a sure sign that a society is imploding.  Like a hag avoiding mirrors, the challenge is to avoid seeing the truth at all costs.

A few years ago, efforts to prosecute a man for flag-burning failed because the Magistrate decided that s/he could not be certain that the flag was indeed an Australian flag and not one of very many that look remarkably similiar, most paricularly, New Zealand.

Flags of Australian and New Zealand. Can you guess which is which?

Murder, Strine Style

A man and a woman have each been charged with two counts of murder after a pair of burning drums containing the bodies of two people were found in a forest on the New South Wales south coast.

Liza Watch- LiZa no pants!

MINNELLI SHOCKED CENSORS WITH UNDERWEAR-FREE TV SPECIAL

LIZA MINNELLI shocked censors with the costumes for her 1972 TV special LIZA WITH A Z, because she wore nothing under them.

Watchdogs at America's Standards + Practices threatened to shut the show down three hours before it aired live, prompting choreographer/director BOB FOSSE to beg them to reconsider.

The censors were outraged by the racy HALSTON costumes Minnelli was set to wear on the show, which has been remastered for a DVD release in March (06).

The CABARET star recalls, "It was the first time that Halston clothing had been seen, and I tell you this, there's not a lot of undergarments in Liza With a Z. It's fairly naked.

"There was a lady who came in who was from Standards and Practices, and she took a look at the costumes and said, `She's naked up there. We can't use that.'

"Fosse and (songwriters) KANDER + EBB and (designer) Halston took this one woman into a room and they talked to her for 15 minutes. I'm standing outside and we have three hours before the show goes on.

"She comes out and she has a different look on her face. I said, `Is it all right? Can I wear these clothes?' And she said, `Yes. It's fashion.' They won and the clothes won all kinds of awards, as did Fosse and myself. We all won the Emmys."

www.contactmusic.com

Richard Bernstein at Hotel Chelsea

Attached, a screen capture of the late, briliant, Richard Bernstein in his ground floor studio / home @ Hotel Chelsea.

The capture is from a doco called Andy Warhol: The Complete Picture.  I cannot find it at Amazon but it is available through an Australian on-line retailer.

'ANDY WARHOL: THE COMPLETE PICTURE'

Tomorrow: Screen Captures of Hotel Chelsea from Love Monkey
Eventually: Richard Bernstein profile.

Factory Girl pre-rumbles

Lou Reed isn't happy about the new Edie biopic.

"I read that script," Reed said the other night at a party for his new photo shows at the Hermès boutique and the Steven Kasher Gallery. "It's one of the most disgusting, foul things I've seen — by any illiterate retard — in a long time. There's no limit to how low some people will go to write something to make money."